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- United being SNUBBED by the latest midfielder they probably had no genuine interest in.
- Suarez and Rooney being linked with pretty ridiculous sounding moves within the Premier League.
- Norwich quietly assembling a tasty looking side.
- England's women apparently keeping up the fine traditions of the men's game.
- Preseason kicking off with friendlies left, right and centre.

The journalists in that case were both from the North so made sense that their info came from either Suarez or Liverpool. The Grauniad's story today is from their man on our Asia tour though, which makes me think there must be something in it (or it's a lie that suits all 3 parties).

Still fully expect him to be wearing a City or Real shirt come September, but I'd be interested to see how quickly I forget my principals if he did sign.

and probably every other Premier League team except Man Utd, Chelsea, Man City and (unless Suaraez goes) Liverpool would have a better squad for signing him but he's nowhere near as good as he thinks he is and, as such, seems to have completely unreasonable expectations of the places he should be playing and the wages he should be earning...

Makes sense now Dortmund have Mkhitaryan...but with the lack of concrete evidence and the way this summer is going...I wouldn't hold my breath If I were a Liverpool fan. If he goes and Suarez stays though, things might be interesting

Supporters in a ground will pick up on anything and everything, any perceived weakness or difference, and use it to unsettle or rile opposition players and fans. As a whole match-going football fans aren't the most enlightened bunch but a lot of the vitriol you'll hear at games doesn't necessarily come from genuine, considered or overt bigotry. It comes from a knuckle-dragging pack/all-is-fair-in-love-and-war mentality that can transform even the meekest when they go through a turnstile.

I do think it's a lie that football is particularly bad at homophobia- most institutions are bad at homophobia and football is an easy target. The idea that 'no one really bats an eyelid at people's sexuality' elsewhere is completely contrary to much experience of the working world.

I suspect that a good few gay footballers are out in their workplaces- there's been plenty of whisperings about certain players, past and present. I'd imagine the footballer's workplace is fraught with the same pernicious homophobia that 99% of workplaces are, but is generally accepting enough for people to at least be open about their sexuality. The workplace probably isn't the worst hurdle for gay footballers to overcome.

I generally dislike the horrible classist vein that runs through the football narrative, including the idea that football players and fans (generally or perceived to be drawn from the working and lower classes) are somehow more bigoted than the world around them. I think people associated with other areas of social life are sometimes too quick to congratulate themselves on how open minded they think they are, especially compared to the great unwashed. But that's probably a subject for another day ...

presumably the only way shelling out £200m for that shanty makes sense is for two related reasons - to build another, bigger stadium somewhere cheaper nearby, like Acton/Battersea/Vauxhall or something. And then build wave after wave of apartments on the extremely lucrative Craven Cottage land, obviously while preserving the listed bits (cottage and Michael Jackson statue). A smart developer would be able to sell the cottage as a "feature" of a new development's landscaping rather than a hindrance.

The fact that they aren't allowed to expand where they are actually makes his job much easier when selling the idea of uprooting to the Fulham ultras.

Cha-CHING. The only issue is the status of the Leitch-designed stand I guess - not sure what sort of listing that has, if any.

We sign the best domestic players on a relatively regular basis, the business we do from abroad tends to be unknown/unpolished gems.

The idea that we're suddenly going to embark on a new era of signing established European talent at the peak of their careers from the top-level clubs is just something I can't see as realistic especially now Fergie has gone and the draw of playing for him no longer applies.

We've appointed a manager with a good record of working with financial limitations for a very real reason.

Obviously RVP's the devil, Rooney's a dick, Evra and Young are pretty annoying and for some reason I really dislike Cleverly, but there's no fully fledged, dyed in the wool arseholes left and now that Fergie's finished his 6 year spell of patting Wenger on the head and naffed off it's increasingly difficult to hate United

The RvP signing was an anomaly in recent seasons on accounts of Fergie knowing he was retiring and a world class player becoming available domestically who was actually willing to move to us. You realise he was the first player over the age of 26 we'd signed (for a fee) in 5 years or so right?

The debt is a factor in our transfer dealings now, it blows my mind that anyone can look at our recent business (RvP aside) and think otherwise

Since we signed a 27 year old Dimitar Berbatov for over £30m... and 5 years since we splashed out nearly 100m on new signings. 3 of which cost over £20m from foreign clubs. Both pre-Ronaldo departure.

I'm really not expecting a big change in transfer policy, and agree with most of what you've said. They've stated from day 1 that the focus will be on youth, and we clearly cant compete with City or Chelsea on a financial basis, but a new manager is as big an exception as any, and I wouldn't be surprised if their is interested in established players if they become available.

517. rockandhardplace
12 MINUTES AGO
"What difference does it make. Attention seeking does not progress your sexual preference and neither does it have anything to do with sport. Get over it, there is no place in professional sport for an inferiority complex."

516. Simoc
22 MINUTES AGO
"Coming out is plain attention seeking behaviour. Like schoolgirls dying their hair green. LOOK AT ME, I'm different. Nobody cares. Football is about winning. But anyway you'll be able to put that little headline in your scrapbook and tell someone you were once famous for coming out, whatever that means."

All 3 of which would ironically display exactly the kind of ignorance that suggests that that this kind of public conversation about the attitude towards gay people in sport is still very much needed.
Top marks go to the last guy, who passive-aggressively made sure to compare Roberts to a schoolgirl throughout his diatribe.

How many days into the season before David Moyes walks into his office, closes the door behind him, twists the blinds closed and then very very slowly squats down on his haunches until he's hugging his legs to his chest, drives his face into the top of his knees and slowly bounces there for several hours making a low moaning sound?

... And can confirm that without fail we receive anti-gay chanting at every game. Some good natured banter (Does you boyfriend know you're here?) and some downright loathsome (Town full of AIDS etc...)

With that knowledge, I wouldn't be dying to come out as a gay footballer.

I certainly remember when I first entered the big wide world of work some 15 years ago having a feeling that whilst there was very little overt homophobia, a statistical analysis of those in management postions could lead one to draw their own conclusions.

I can happily report that I no longer consider this to be the place. However, my 3 main employers have been large multinational companies. I wouldn't expect this to be true of all smaller businesses perhaps.

Can see Illaramendi replacing Khedira at some point in the season, but I reckon Carvajal will be more of a role player, coming off the bench to replace arbeloa. Arbeloa and Alonso are still really solid performers, and would be surprised if Ancelotti gave more minutes to the young guys at the start.

but 'pernicious' was the real crux of what I was saying. The world is still, with only the sad exception of overt examples, perniciously homophobic. It may not manifest in the most obvious or outrageous ways (the sort of things that discrimination laws can go some way to tackling) but it's there ... The sort of more subtle, low-level prejudice that wouldn't necessarily stop people from coming out but could rear its head in a number of seemingly mundane ways.

That's what your average office/workplace is and that's what I suspect the average footballing training room is like.

No doubt that homophobia is a problem in football- I'm not arguing against that at all. What makes me uneasy is the stick a mostly working class pursuit gets for being homophobic from a broader world that shouldn't be rushing to congratulate itself on its own record.

There are plenty of reasonable reasons to want to leave. Who wants to work in the same place for 9 years? And it seems he was fairly honest and up front about it with the club, which is more than you can say for plenty of other players. Like you allude to, he must be annoyed at being slightly marginalised for a player who, although top drawer, can't match his own record over such a long period, is older and is seemingly more inclined to injury.

I guess I sympathise with the stick he's getting, more than with his situation. As far as his PR goes, he fucked himself with the first request to leave. Seems like he went about things with a bit more honesty and integrity this time but was played by someone much smarter and who had a score to settle.

I think he's a ref-bothering twat but I'd not be displeased to see him in a Chelsea shirt.

Barca reverting back to their prima donna, early 00's ways doesn't really surprise me to be honest. What is strange is how classy Madrid are looking now after signing Isco, Illara, carvajal and casemiro. Expect that opinion to change when Suarez gets off the plane at Barajas next month.

but it wouldn't surprise me if it's significantly more. He's kind of backed himself into a corner anyway, refusing the new contract from Celtic, so he's got to move and it looks like only QPR are willing to match Celtic's valuation.

I won't bear him any ill will if he goes, nobody's getting fucked over here. It's a short career, if they're offering him a big increase (I can't see Celtic offering him anything much over £20k a week) then he'd be daft not to take it.

and he loses the use of his legs and he can't play football again so he turns to the bottle and his family leaves him and his friends dwindle away and he loses all his money and has to live in a shit flat and no-one visits him and he falls out of his wheelchair and can't get back up and he just slowly starves...slowly starves to death.

Possibly double that with this move. I am a bit disappointed- to lose him and with where he's gone (i like qpr but it doesn't feel to me like the most intuitive move, weekly wage hike aside. Not the shop window i thought he'd go for).

because he's still as good a footballer as there is in the country, and still probably their most dangerous, reliable, big game player, even ahead of van Persie. Any other English club who signed him would be hugely improved, let's be honest.

is a pretty strong indication it hasn't happened. It'll just be the United press office, or someone doing briefing on their behalf, deflecting. Chelsea are pretty easy to do that with because they flatly refuse to comment on speculation.

And in any case, Chelsea especially are at least as disliked as United. In fact, i'd argue they're a lot more disliked, to be honest. Lots of people have a begrudging respect for the fact that United's sucess extends beyond the last ten years and wasn't funded by an arms dealer playing real life fantasy football.

United wanting rid, or having use for a Mata, or it being a good swap because of the possible arcs of both players' future careers, being a good deal financially, etc, etc, but for me Rooney still, ahead of anyone else who plays for any other club in the country, is the player you'd be most happiest to see left off the opposition teamsheet.

Surprised City haven't gone for him. Get him back to the North-West, bit less of a fishbowl environment, a manager who speaks his language and is known for being good at putting an arm around players, maybe a team who'll play to his strengths a bit more, idk, and with a point to prove. He scored 20+ goals last season. It's beyond me why people think he's some sort of donkey. If we were talking £15m, someone could get themselves a very good player there.

Torres is an inconsistent but experienced and elegant finisher. Blighted by a lack of confidence. A useful striker for £15m or so, sure, but Torres *should* be much more than that. That's the rub, I think. Clearly still rolls enough in the onion per season to justify being a top striker - just an absolute shadow of the player he used to be/Chelsea thought they were buying.

Not necessarily that Chelsea need it- more that Mata was signed on a (relatively) dead cheap contract and it's renewal time. I can't imagine giving him a big pay increase would be a problem but I guess there's FFP and potential high earner clauses and all that shit.

Just rationalising an obvious mental, baseless story though. There's no plausible reason.

It was always going to be a big change to replace a long-serving manager, but he'd have hoped for as few problems as possible in his first summer.

This will get uglier until he finally goes. If he ends up at Chelsea I think it could backfire, even if better players like Mata and Luiz come in the opposite direction. Chelsea are favourite for the title this year and if he has any role in them taking it from United, it could be seen as United strengthening a rival on hindsight - especially if Moyes doesn't win a big trophy / mount a decent challenge on retaining the Prem.

Also dunno if the public pursuit of Thiago and Fabregas is a good idea. Unless United can find an alternative midfielder of their standard (there aren't many proven in Europe widely available) it could put a bit of pressure on him going into the season, especially from the fans who've been calling for a good midfielder for the last few seasons.

Obviously you don't want to set much stall in preseason games, but getting tonked all over Germany by the likes of the mighty Greuther Furth obviously doesn't instil a great deal of confidence, nor does a near total dearth of defensive cover and a top scorer whose mind is elsewhere, as is the rest of him as he's still injured. A ridiculous way to start the season.

Don't know if the BBC would go with a bid for a player as lead story if they hadn't had it confirmed by a source at either club, but maybe i'm wrong. Seems a bit of an odd one given that United had been on the end of some major snubbage from a Barca midfielder just days before and Cesc apparently doesn't want out.

It wouldn't do to have a well-regarded player jump ship at United, but there's no problem at all with a past-it trouble maker being booted out. The messier it gets, the better United can look when it reaches its inevitable conclusion.

Yeah I think you've got the right reading of it however he doesn't expressly say Rooney will play or is an important part of the first 11. He also definitely uses the phrases back up and if RVP is injured, so I can see why someone angling for a move already could use these to feign outrage.

It's funny that he's a full back these days. When I first saw him play at the U20s world cup a few years back, he was remeniscent of Ronaldo's early days at United. A winger who was all tricks and no end product. I could never have envisaged him becoming a full back

It would be a real break in policy for them to do so so I'm wondering if Wallace's quote is less a statement and more yet another shady source counter-counter-COUNTER briefing. I'd be very disappointed if the club formally said anything.

then that'd be interesting, but I'd still prefer to see him go for a little more than that. Considering he has a better recent record than Torres had when he was sold, I think if it can be nudged up to 50, then do it (Although of course Torres was overpriced and Liverpool then squandered the money).

The more of a clusterfuck it is, the better United look at the end. Like I said somewhere else, the difference between a star name jumping ship and a club booting out a troublemaker is huge (to the people who care about that sort of thing), even if the actual outcome of both is the same.

And the better United are likely to look at the end, the more likely they are to sell, which is now clearly what Chelsea want.

My reading is that the deal is done- the rest is PR noise, positioning for all the interested parties.

Like him, very good player, but i was really hoping for Jovetic. Can only see it being an either/or situation of the two now Dzeko has been confirmed as staying, irrespective of what Pellegrini says.

The Internet reckons United met with Jovetic's agent yesterday, so maybe he'll go there instead. Him in for about £25m, Rooney to Chelsea for, well, i think it'll be a LOT more than £20m. Good business, but obviously i'm speculating hugely.

His value will only go up, and Madrid are in a bit of a snooker in that they couldn't realistically keep Ronaldo and buy Bale. He's been getting mental exposure over the pond as well, and if his people are successful in shaping him into CR7 Mk.2 as they're obviously trying to, i don't think it's a transfer that would cost a savvy club much money in the long term. If United get about £30m for Rooney, and were then to offer, say, £60m for Bale, i think they'd get him, and they might not have a better chance. In the very least it would put more pressure on Madrid.

I don't see it happening though as much as I'd love it. I just think Levy and Spurs are actually serious about ensuring he sticks around and I don't think he'll try and force a move unless they finish outside the top-4 again. Selling him would be admitting that they're not CL quality and given how impressive they've been in the last few seasons I can see them being very stubborn (quite rightly) about it.

£60m absolute minimum (unless there's a clause). Possibly over £70m. Best player in the most high profile league in the world, plus Levy. If you think he's not going to go for an absolute fortune you're pretty naive.

showing three different first teams Sunderland could have fielded in the last three years; they'll be able to add to that this season. This is part of the Di Canio RIVOLUZIONE though, rather than Brucey buying loads of shite and alienating strikers, which is different.

Porto rarely own their players. They are essentially loaned them from private investors, then when they sell them they get little of the money, but get money whenever they're sold on in the future. Several of these companies employ superagents. Monaco are spending a billionaire's money, through superagents, with the money going through clubs and to the pockets of other superagents. Falcao, Rodriguez, Moutinho, Hulk. £150m+ on four players, all represented by the same people, all former Porto players.

It's pretty much dirty money getting cleaned via football, isn't it? Obviously i don't and couldn't really have an issue with billioball in general, but this is next level shit. Eventually it will end up that none of the top players in the world are actually owned by clubs, and private investors can 'trade' them where they want at will whenever it takes their fancy.

Chelsea are on a par with United now. They've been winning as many trophies as them for a sustained period, they have more pedigree in Europe now, they compete almost every year. If they started relieving them of key players, no matter how the selling club would natually try to paint that in a different light, it would be a huge statement.

For me, United will always be England's biggest club and will always compete, but Chelsea are now getting to the point where they're genuinely a fucking huge, frightening club in their own right, and not just because they're rich.

As i said above, if they were to sell him and sign a top, younger player, it might work, but what it would stand for, selling your most high-profile player to your biggest competitors at this time, idk, big decision, whoever you replace him with.

Fees seem to be varying quite a bit, from £19.8m (Grauniad) to £28m (Mail). Ain't coming out of my pocket, so fuck it.

He's trebled his salary, apparently, from £1.65m a year (can only assume this has come from Del Nido) so, hmmm....a cool £95k a week or so. Good work if you can get it. What does that get you now? About ten goals a season?

I was thinking about throwing Jo-Lo into the mix as a makeshift striker.

Dzeko looked fairly comfortable on the ball in the friendly the other day. Hopefully he's realised that he can't just rely on himself scoring goals to stay in the team, so he's been getting some lessons from Daveeeed.

Baines will be a good signing and all but after all the FABREGAS! MODRIC! BALE! RONALDO'S COMING HOME!!1 nonsense it'll be a bit like going to Glastonbury to find out the super special secret headliner you'd been promised is actually Ash somehow headlining again.

Don't care about adults who chose to wear replica shirts getting ripped off, it's kind of like smoking - I do it despite knowing it's a shit idea so I accept I'm going to get taxed to fuck, but charging £30+ for kid's sizes is outrageous

Which is just fucking obscene, but i guess it's sort of levelled out by kids season tickets working out at around £6 per game.

In a way, i can see why clubs might put prices up for reasons beyond just making more money. Obviously talk of football + brands knocks people a little sick, but there's ecomomical sense about increasing the prestige of your product. I bought a Barcelona shirt a couple of years ago, probably the only new shirt i've bought as an adult, from a Nike shop, cost £65. If it had of been, say, £30 i probably wouldn't have bought it.

Think we just have Bendtner, Gervinho and Chamakh left? There was a rumour we cancelled Park's contract a month or so ago, and havent seen him in any training photos or anything, but the club havent said a think about him :')

anyway, yeah. Reckon we must be spending about 200k less on wages now. DECENT.

Really good player, but his arrival will almost certainly mean the end of James Milner, which would be a shame as he's been really superb. Having said that, 7 goals and 20 assists in three seasons (112 games), not exactly brilliant, and for his undeniably brilliant workrate a winger has to have end product. Expect he'll go to Spurs or Liverpool for about half of his true value.

£90m spent looks big but once you take off the massive wages people like Tevez, Ballotelli, RSC, Bridge and Kolo were on and then take off the £30m for the Balo and Tevez sales and it's only £60 net and a massive saving on wages.

This is all blown out of the window if we spend big on Salvio!
Needlessly defensive etc

Rumoured to be on around £95k a week (he cost quite a lot of money, didn't he - £18m + Ireland, and at the time had just had his amazing season where he was probably the best central midfielder in the country).

Like Barry and Lescott, who are said to be on a similar amount, i susect he'd consider a pay cut to move and start regularly elsewhere if the club wanted to move him on.

In which case: Hart, Richards, Lescott, Milner, Barry, Sinclair, Rodwell, Dicky Wright? Is bob on 8 so assuming that Sinclair and Barry are moved on we'd have to replace them with English/home grown players anyway.

a club could (potentially with medicals still to come) bring in Navas, Fernandinho, Jovetic & Negredo for cumulatively lower salaries than they were paying Wayne Bridge, Kolo Toure, Roque Santa-Cruz & Maicon.

Lovely, lovely man. Icon of the game, really, eh? One of those players who was widely loved outside of the clubs he played for. Plenty of 'keepers have gone on record as saying he was one of the very best, including Lev Yashin, who said he was the greatest ever. Just one of football's great stories, wasn't he - coming over to England when he did, playing through years of post-war stick, winning the general public over, breaking his neck in the Cup Final, etc, etc. Really, really sad news. After Colin Bell, probably the biggest cult hero City fans have ever had.

a fake football agent. people are easy as fuck to wind in. linking players who've previously left clubs under dark clouds with a surprise return was always a guddun. the game was up when i said Bale had signed for Chelsea. a fabricated agent statement meant it was a real flyer, but when it didn't happen people smelt a rat and i had to abandon ship.

surely city are gonna have a few very pissed off, expensive players next season doing very relatively little actual football. It's pretty mental having 5 strikers (blah blah jovetic behind the striker wah).

then when he realised no one actually wanted him he just took the big pay packet instead and pretended like none of it happened.

He only plays well 50% of the time. Have you never watched England games? Sometimes he just looks like he doesnt give a shit. A lot of the time when hes running everywhere its to make up for the fact hes playing crap.

Its just football though, if he plays for united i want him to paly well and score goals. I dont like him as a person though.

chelsea have 4 strikers (probably 5 by the end of this t/w) cos they cant get rid of torres and cos they basically bought demba ba for the sake of 6 months of one season and cos theyre a bit of a joke. We barely had one and a half strikers last year but we're not a BIG CLUB obviously.

seriously have no idea how your supposed to keep all of dzeko, aguero, negredo, jovetic, silva, navas, milner and nasri all happy in the same team.

As soon as Ferguson let him get away with it it as obvious he wasn't going to be around much longer. When he then followed it up with such a vanity signing as van Persie, more of us should have guessed really.

He comes across as both unpleasant and stupid, even within the rarified world of millionaire footballers. He is one of the worst offenders in the mouthing off to officials stakes. He once held his club to ransom in order to claim a paycheck no mortal man needs. He lost the raw pace and fierceness that made him such an exciting talent in his teens largely as a result of his inability to control his lifestyle. He cheated/s on his wife. Pretty sure there's more, but I don't come from Merseyside.

unless it's just a massive coincidence that he stuck the transfer request in the day after news of Chelsea moving for him leaked, then withdrew it and signed a new deal the day after Mourinho ruled out signing any other striker but Rooney.

saying that they want five trophies over the next five years, but that it doesn't really matter what they are, or if some of the seasons are trophyless.

goes without saying that they'll want to improve in the Champions League, but United still have 20 years of title pedigree and so are correctly favourites doemstically, and Chelsea still have the best squad of all three teams, so realistically they could finish in any order.

no need to get insecure about it, bud, but base level expectations for City are more likely 1) some sort of title challenge, successful or not, 2) group stages of the Champions League or better, 3) and to a much lesser extent, a domestic cup.

quite likely it could be a transitional season, though, given the changes at virtually all levels. certainly doubt Pellegrini would be going anywhere unless City finished out of the top four.

keeping him might be detrimental to dressing room morale and the settling in of the new keeper, as much as Reina seems pretty professional.

clubs having two top keepers rarely works, you need a balance, just as you do with strikers. Reina wanted to leave, no-one offered any money, get a loan fee, his wages off the books, flog him next summer, or as someone above says, if Mingolet for some reason doesn't work, bring Reina back.

I like the look of Zaha but his end product and finishing tonight reminded me of Nani. Lingard was MOTM. Took his 2nd goal very well. Both he and Januzaj look like they will eventually make the step up.

instead of faffing about doing a Spurs and threatening to sign people, could have really been a goer, but if you were him you'd look at the Arsenal squad/setup and think that it's not really moved on from his leaving. all they've done is shelved a bit of dead wood. for him to return they'd have to be title possibles, in his eyes, i imagine, else it'd just end up being him dragging them to the North London Shield every year again.

however the optimist in me is hoping for suarez and fabregas coming in and us smashing everyone we encounter.

in all seriousness, i dont think he'll be leaving barca this summer. i think its more likely he'll leave next year (if at all) and id expect us to be in for him obviously- whether or not he'd be interested in coming back is entirely open to speculation. think wenger and him have a close relationship and with all due respect, playing at united under moyes doesn't hold the same sway as united under SAF. hopefully fab could resist any little screaming boys inside him and not follow van cunt's example.

the thing i find strange about it all is that united have so publicly gone for it when they know arsenal have first refusal. that leads me to two thoughts: firstly, moyes must be pretty confident that either we won't bid (really think we would) or that cesc would definitely pick them over us (again, open to speculation but don't think its cut and dried, one way or the other). secondly, and possibly more realistically, united don't expect him to be available this year but are after him publicly as a pr move before getting fellaini in.

i understand this one simply gives Arsenal chance to match whatever offer Barca accept. if that was £35m there'd be questions about Arsenal being willing to go that high for a player, imo.

what might happen, i think, is the clubs come to some sort of an agreement. United, despite Moyes' public comments, quite probably want to move Rooney on, but not to Chelsea, who have been publically tapping him up. i think he's go to Arsenal. in fact, i think they'd be the best place for him. he could conceivably be used as a carrot for Arsenal to wave their option on Fabregas, privately at least. everyone wins.

which also makes a lot more sense considering the figures united have put forward. Cesc's worth much more than £35m imo.

Besides, i dont reckon a move to united would be a particularly smart move at this point in time tbh. I also reckon, in a couple of years, we'll have more money to spend than them. And a better manager. And cooler players.

dont think anyone knows exactly what's going on, but for some reason it doesnt seem that simple from the barca perspective.

Honestly dont know whether media cynicism is reaching new heights or if there genuinely is something behind it. Little bit of hope-clouding-judgement too cos i genuinely reckon we'd get him if he left.

Both first and second bids appear significantly under valuation, and unlikely to test club or player's resolve.

Given that both Barca and Cesc have said there's no way that he's moving, I'd be massively surprised if it went through... If Rooney made a public statement to say he was staying at United, as well as the club, that would be the speculation all but over at this point. Don't understand why it isn't here.

Either: both bids are a bit small time & clutching at straws, they're being used to placate fans in the absence of any real transfer activity, or they're being used as dummies in other negotiations.

Either way they kind of promote the idea that the clubs are unable bring in the players they want.

and been willing to pay over the odds for players where necessary. With Chelsea, it's always going to be a big draw to play for Mourinho. Still not convinced United would have had problems bringing in the same players for the same prices though. With Arsenal, it's not so surprising.

Still, if Moyes has genuinely targeted Fabregas, Ronaldo & Bale with Baines & Fellaini as back up options, he needs to think outside the box a little.

Certainly a position that could do with strengthening but i still feel we need to bring in a fullback so that we can bin Kyle Walker. It'll also be interesting to see who we sign up front now that Benteke has signed a new contract. Putting Adebayor on the bench is risky, his track record as a disruptive influence worries me. We need to sell him ASAP and bring in two forwards IMHO.

Can't see the AVB to Barca rumour working out as it'll be a complicated and expensive risk for them. Having said that, he'd be mad to turn that opportunity down, and you can't really deny anyone the chance to go to that club, can you?

that's massive Sunderland fan Mick Harford! Lovely. There's some slowburning thing he has going which will end in Pardew's resignation and Newcastle being coached by a load of Wimbledons from 1995. and i'm ALL FOR IT